The Palace Attendants gossiped amongst themselves, saying Fifth Class Attendant Yang must be obsessed. The elder Crown Prince would never wear these clothes; he had probably long forgotten she even existed. Why bother with such devotion?
When she heard this, she simply lowered her gaze. Her pale face remained serene as she continued her needlework, her focus even more intense than before.
’I don’t need him to wear them, or even to know. This is just a long, lonely farewell ceremony between me and my long-dead emotions. A memorial service with only one mourner. I am enough.’
Her personal Maid, Lan Xi, entered quietly, a barely perceptible note of anxiety in her voice. "My Lady, a message has come from outside the palace."
Yang Qiushuang pulled her gaze away from Wenhua Hall, her expression returning to its usual placid calm. "What is it?"
Lan Xi lowered her voice. "It’s a message from your family at the Yang Mansion. They say Madam Yang is gravely ill and her condition is not good. She misses you, My Lady, and wishes to see you."
Yang Qiushuang’s fingers trembled, and the fine needle she held nearly pricked her skin. "Mother..."
Her mother had always been frail. Since entering the palace many years ago, she had been bound by its numerous regulations, and the times she had been able to see her mother could be counted on one hand.
Her last visit home had been five years ago, for her father’s funeral. A mixture of guilt and a dark premonition gripped her, leaving her feeling breathless.
"Go and inform the Crown Prince Consort that I need to leave the palace," she said, setting down the sleep robe she was sewing. Her voice was still cool, but it was tinged with an imperceptible tension and worry.
When Yun Liyue heard Yang Qiushuang’s request, she didn’t stand in her way at all.
She knew this Fifth Class Attendant Yang had a cool and aloof nature, content to stay out of palace intrigue. For years, she had been well-behaved and kept to herself, rarely contacting her family. For her to request leave now, the situation had to be urgent.
She quickly approved the exit permit and even made a point of assigning two reliable Guards to accompany her. She also told Yang Qiushuang not to rush back to the palace, insisting that caring for her mother was the priority and that it was fine to stay longer if needed.
Despite getting permission, Yang Qiushuang felt little relief. Instead, the thread of unease in her heart only grew stronger, and a sense of foreboding settled over her.
She changed into a simple set of everyday clothes, also moon-white in color, adding only a gray squirrel-fur Cloak to ward off the early autumn chill.
Lan Xi quickly packed a small bundle. Accompanied by the Guards, the mistress and her Maid boarded a small, blue-curtained carriage. They departed quietly from Donghua Gate and headed toward the Western Suburbs outside White Jade Imperial City, not daring to waste a single moment.
The carriage rolled over streets that grew steadily busier, passing through the clamor of the city market.
The shouts of vendors, the clatter of horses and carriages, the cheerful cries of children... All the vibrant sounds of life from beyond the palace walls filtered through the carriage curtain, plunging Yang Qiushuang into a strange, unfamiliar daze.
It had been too long since she had experienced the sights and sounds of the common world. Her last trip outside the palace had been years ago.
The days in Ningshuang Pavilion were still and silent, but the world outside continued to surge forward, heedless of the joys and sorrows of anyone in the Deep Palace. Yet, it felt more real and tangible than the lives of many within those walls.
Inside the carriage, Lan Xi watched her lady’s profile grow paler and saw how her eyes stared blankly out the window. She sighed to herself. ’My lady deserves so much better.’
’I know my lady is suffering, but it’s a bitterness she can’t speak of and can’t escape. Not now that she’s in the Deep Palace.’
’And that elder Crown Prince... he’s the source of it all.’
The carriage left the city and traveled along the official road for about an hour before turning onto a somewhat remote country lane that looked much like any other.
The road was flanked by rolling farmland where the rice, nearly golden, hung in heavy tassels, giving off the scent of a bountiful harvest.
In the distance, a village of blue-tiled roofs and white walls came into view. That was the Yang Family Manor, Yang Qiushuang’s maternal home, which had once been a Royal Manor.
The Yang Family’s ancestors had included minor officials, and they possessed modest assets. They were considered a respectable family in the area—not rich, but comfortably well-off.
Yang Qiushuang’s father had been an old scholar, an upright man, while her mother hailed from a literary family and was known for being gentle, kind, virtuous, and refined.
Had it not been for the Crown Prince’s consort selection all those years ago, a woman with Yang Qiushuang’s beauty and talent might have found a stable marriage locally and lived out her days in peace, free from so much turmoil.
The closer she drew to the manor, the tighter Yang Qiushuang’s heart clenched.
She lifted a corner of the carriage curtain and looked out. The manor seemed far more dilapidated than she remembered. Many of the buildings looked as if they hadn’t been repaired in ages, giving off an air of decay.
Weeds grew atop the walls of her family’s once-elegant three-courtyard residence, and no one had bothered to clear them.
The vermilion lacquer on the main gate had faded, and the plaque above the lintel, which read "A Legacy of Farming and Scholarship," seemed to hang slightly askew.
The carriage stopped before the Yang Mansion. The gatekeeper was an old servant she didn’t immediately recognize. He started in fright upon seeing the carriage and the Guards, as if afraid of something.
Only when he recognized Yang Qiushuang as she stepped down from the carriage did he bow hastily, his voice choked with emotion. "Eldest Miss, you’re finally back! The Yang Family... we’ve fallen on hard times."
"Uncle Fu, how is my mother? Is she alright?" Yang Qiushuang asked, forgoing any pleasantries as she walked toward the courtyard.
The courtyard was still tidy, but it had a desolate emptiness, as if it had been abandoned. There were hardly any servants or maids to be seen.
The flowerbeds her father had once meticulously tended were now overgrown, with only a few wild chrysanthemums shrinking in the autumn wind. A faint but persistent medicinal scent hung in the air, suggesting someone had been ill for a long time.
The light in the main room was so dim that it was nearly impossible to make out any figures inside.
Madam Yang lay on a daybed, her body withered and her hair almost entirely white. She looked countless years older than when Yang Qiushuang had last seen her.
Seeing her daughter enter, a light suddenly flared in her cloudy eyes. She reached out a trembling hand. "Shuang’Er... my Shuang’Er... You’ve finally come back."
"Mother!" Yang Qiushuang rushed forward and grasped her mother’s thin, cold hand. Her eyes instantly turned red, and tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks.
’In my memory, Mother was always frail, but she was also gentle and well-kept. When has she ever looked so haggard?’ "What happened to you? Have you seen a doctor? Is the medicine helping? Do you want me to summon an Imperial Physician?"
Tears streamed down Madam Yang’s face before she could utter a word. She only clutched her daughter’s hand tightly, gasping for breath, unable to form a complete sentence. She knew, after all, a little of her daughter’s delicate situation in the palace.
At her side, her sister-in-law, a member of the Zhou Clan and the wife of her brother Yang Chengye, stepped forward with red-rimmed eyes. "Sister," she whispered to Yang Qiushuang, "Mother’s illness... it comes from anger and worry. If we don’t treat the root cause, even an Imperial Physician will be of no use. We have to resolve the underlying problem for her to have any hope of recovery."
"’From anger... and worry?’" Yang Qiushuang’s heart sank. "What’s happened to the family? And Chengye? Where is he?"

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